Getting The Gospel Wrong in Corinth
Posted: Tuesday, April 07, 2009
by Phillip Ross
Pilgrim Platform
Paul thought, wrote and taught that some of the leaders of the Corinthian church had things arsy varsy or backwards. And the reason that First Corinthians has been valued over the centuries is that many Christians and churches have found Paul's insights and teachings to be valuable. Getting God wrong is a common problem that has plagued Christianity since the time of the Corinthian church, and before that back into the history of the Old Testament to the Fall of Adam. Being a sinner means getting things wrong. Paul was trying to help the Corinthians get things right, and their getting things right meant that they first come to understand that they had gotten things wrong.
The contemporary American churches in the dawning of the Twenty-First Century are in a situation that is remarkably similar to that of the ancient Corinthian church. So, Paul's work with the Corinthians will have some pertinent analysis of and application to our own contemporary situation. Closely following Paul's text will help us see and reveal the trouble the Corinthians had gotten into as a church as clearly as possible. We need to understand what Paul was saying to them in the hope of shining some light on our own problem because their problem is our problem. It's a recurring problem because it is a problem of gospel reception and transmission.
" Corinth was a city of wealth and culture, seated at the crossroads of the Roman Empire, where all the trade and commerce of the empire passed through. It was a city of beauty, a resort city, located in a very beautiful area, but it was also a city of prostitution and of passion. It was devoted to trade and commerce, but also to the worship of the goddess of sex," said Ray Stedman in The Deep Things of God (Discovery Books, 1981) . Many of the people in the Corinthian church didn't understand why Paul was so troubled with them. After all, they were a large, successful church. They were growing by leaps and bounds. Membership and attendance statistics were solid. They thought they were doing great.
But Paul was troubled by what they were doing and he made every effort to tell them so. His trouble with the Corinthians is our trouble because his trouble with them would be his trouble with us. Unfortunately, the popular Evangelical approach to Christianity today has left too many people thinking that the pinnacle of Christianity comes at conversion, when we first give our hearts and lives to Jesus Christ. The initial change of heart and mind that captures new Christians is so stark a contrast to life before regeneration that it is described as going from death to life, from darkness to light. And it is exactly that!
But for far too many Christians the emotional high that accompanied their initial conversion and the wonderful feelings associated with the release from the burden of sin establishes a kind of emotional high water mark in their lives. It is a mountain top experience and tends to fade as people return to the daily drudgery of ordinary life. The release from sin releases a stream of endorphins into the blood stream. Endorphins are brain chemicals associated with emotions that occur naturally in the brain and have analgesic properties. This, of course, is not a bad thing, but a good thing because it associates good feelings with God. However, being awash in an endorphin high is not the state of heart and mind that God wants His people to live in day in and day out. Nor does God want His people to get stuck in an emotional rut, forever pining for and pursuing the pleasures of emotional indulgence.
Too many Christians today are like converted hippies of a former time. Getting high on drugs is remarkably similar to getting high on Jesus. Too much Christianity today is patterned after an emotional high. Please understand me. There is nothing wrong with feeling good, but our own good feelings are not the heart of Christianity.
Rather, God wants His people to grow-emotionally, intellectually, relationally, in every way. We are to grow "until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love" (Ephesians 4:13-16). And more often than not growth-real growth-is hard work.
But wait a minute! Isn't salvation a function of God's grace and not our works? It is. Paul said, "For by grace you have been saved through faith" (Ephesians 2:8). Salvation, which is completely a function of God's grace, works through faith. It comes through faith. It is applied through faith. Faith is the instrument through which God's grace works or accomplishes its purpose.
It is amazing how much application Paul's words to the Corinthians have to the contemporary churches at the beginning of the Twenty-First Century. It is amazing how Paul's analysis of their problem fits the contemporary situation. And of course it is true that Paul was writing to them in their time about some very specific problems. So, understanding Paul's words from their perspective, from the perspective of that First Century Corinthian church is very important to the study of Corinthians today. However, if we only understand Paul from a First Century perspective, as applying only to the Corinthian church, we will only have a history lesson. As important as it is to understand what Paul was saying to those who first received his letter, to place our primary focus there will blunt the sharp edge of Paul's analysis and prescription, and quench the Spirit (1 Thessalonians 5:19) who is also speaking to us.
Of course Paul was writing directly to those First Century Christians. That is not in dispute. It is important to understand what he was saying to them. But we must understand that Paul was not writing merely to them. Paul was quite aware of his own position as an apostle of Jesus Christ, of the importance of his words, and of their place in history should God be willing to preserve them. And He did preserve Paul's words for us. Why did God preserve Paul's words for us? Because they were not just for those First Century Christians at Corinth, but they were intended by God and by Paul for us who would come later (1 Corinthians 10:11). Consequently, our task is to understand, not merely what Paul was saying to the Corinthians, but also what he is saying to us today.
(Article exerpted from Arsy Varsy-Reclaiming the Gospel in First Corinthians , by Phillip A. Ross, Pilgrim Platform, 2008, 400 pages, ISBN: 978-0-9820385-1-2.)
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Top-level comments on this article: (1 total)Phillip,That was a heavy! And, I agree with you. Paul's words are as appropriate today as they were to the Corinthians.Thank you for sharing this article. It certainly speaks volumes especially when I just read Newsweek's recent article on America becoming less Christian. You have to read the entire piece though to see that Christianity is actually not dying in our country or in many areas of the world.Nancy
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